A group of three planes from our EAA chapter flew up to the Piccadilly Lilly at Lone Rock, WI for lunch. Had a good hamburger and it was fun to get out and go somewhere. (My 5.6 hrs earlier in the week was mainly spent in the pattern doing T&G's, soft field, and short field practice.)
We went wheels up from CID at around 11:00 with Steve and I in his 7A and Terry in his EZ as a flight of two. Mark and his son Skyler in his RV8A was just a little ahead of us as he took off from CID just as we were taxing to the runway. Our flight of two flew the trip up at an alt of 5500, nice smooth air with some cross wind but nothing on the nose. Mark had noticed a 6 knot tailwind at 3500 and though he came to 5500 shortly he went back to 3500 to take advantage of the tailwind.
Mark was throttled back and conserving fuel and we caught him as we crossed the Mississippi. Terry was leading us in the EZ and we were seeing around 155kts and about 7 GPH fuel burn. That EZ does pretty well for running, if I remember correctly, a 0-290 GPU that was converted. I believe he said his fuel burn was around 5 GPH.
On the way back we did have a little head wind and flew as a flight of three until close to CID at which time Terry was going to a different end of the airport than the rest so he broke off.
All in all a great time and I really appreciate Steve offering me the chance to go. I don't believe he post here but he is a repeat offender with I believe a 6A, his current 7A and now working on an 8A. Thanks again Steve!
Here are a few images I shot, nothing very good but better than none.
Doing the runups before departing Lone Rock.
Terry in lead and Mark #2
The WI landscape, as you can see most of the snow is gone. Finally!
TomC, we missed you today. Catch you on the next run.
